On Serbia – Filip Balunovic in NYT:

‘t was an Easter miracle.
Protesters had been blocking the building of Radio Television of Serbia, the national public broadcaster in Belgrade, with a simple demand: cover objectively the monthslong struggle against Serbia’s increasingly autocratic president, Aleksandar Vucic. But after days there, they needed reinforcements. On Good Friday students from Novi Pazar, the largest city in the region where most of the country’s Muslims live, arrived to take over the blockade. Since Muslim students were not celebrating Easter, they volunteered to relieve their colleagues from Belgrade.
This show of solidarity was magical enough. But then a war veteran, who had been wounded in 1992 during the siege of Sarajevo, addressed the crowd. After denouncing the broadcaster for siding with those in power, he greeted the students from Novi Pazar: “Salaam aleikum” echoed across the square. “Don’t worry about your children,” he told their parents. “There are no more ‘ours’ and ‘yours.’ They are all our children now.” It was a cathartic moment, a gesture of profound inclusion in a country scarred by wars and deep-seated divisions. But it was more than that. It marked a Copernican shift for Serbia, as the country is being transformed by a brave and enduring student-led movement.’

(…)

‘But today’s movement is the largest and most extensive yet, reaching deep into Serbian society. Its catalyst came last November, when the canopy of a train station collapsed in the city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people. The station’s reconstruction had recently been completed: Corruption, many believed, lay at the heart of the tragedy. Protests demanding those responsible be held to account began almost instantly and continued through the winter, spreading across the country.’

(…)

‘Blending hard-line nationalism and constant fearmongering about internal and external enemies with a pro-European facade, Mr. Vucic has successfully consolidated control of the country. In the process, he has turned Serbia into something of a Frankenstein’s monster, flirting simultaneously with Russia and America, China and France, Turkey and Germany.’ (…)

‘There’s no assurance they’ll succeed. After months of protests, blockades and door-to-door campaigning, many are exhausted. Some have been imprisoned, accused of plotting a coup, and there have been incidents of police brutality. But for all the difficulties, the protesters are doing it their own way — without leaders, without hierarchies, through plenums and strictly horizontal decision-making. Equal and united in solidarity, they are changing Serbia and setting an example for the world to follow.
Now, that really would be a miracle.’

Read the article here.

Slavoj Žižek wrote about Serbia and the student protest a couple of months ago.

Most protest movements failed in the last decades. Occupy didn’t achieve much, but it was fun probably.
The Arab Spring gave birth to new dictatorships.

And who knows, maybe this time Serbia will show the world that a protest movement is able to do more than fuel some (academic) debate.

One should always leave the possibility of a miracle open.